Balance
by kthicks97
Summary: A sort of sequel to the original series (exclusion of the comics). Since releasing the Slayer powers, the world is over run with Slayers and a mysterious affliction is killing Slayers in a terrifying matter.
1. Chapter 1-Jessica

Years after Buffy released the powers of the Slayers, the supernatural evil was eradicated and all that was left were the Slayers, with more and more discovering their powers each day and new generations being born every minute. While they rejoiced in their victory, the universe cried out. The word was to face yet another threat, total chaos. Balance must be restored.

* * *

She could feel her insides burning. She didn't know how or why. The doctors couldn't figure it out as well. They were running so many tests, and with each test, more flames consumed her. She was being punished. Accepting her fate, she leaned towards Andrew, the man who had come for her when she needed guidance. He helped her discover her powers, held her when she was afraid, and encouraged her when she wanted to give up. He was her rock, and slowly they fell in love. He cried watching her die, burning from the inside out.

"Don't cry, sweetie," she croaked as she tried to hold her frail hand out to him. Their subtle Doctor Who reference simply made him cry even more. She wished she could cry with him, but her tears stopped flowing days ago. This burning sensation in her was her torment. She wasn't forgiven and she had always known it deep down.

"I love you, sun of my life," Andrew recited in Dothraki. She smiled weakly.

"I love you, my moon and stars," she whispered, barely able to speak. The last thing she heard was Andrew's grief struck cries as she let this cursed fire consume her, just as it had many Slayers before her.

* * *

Jessie sat on a swing in the small park, simply waiting for something to show up. Since the destruction of the Hellmouths, demons were a rare occurrence, and vampires weren't as common. More often than not, Jessie would run into a raccoon mistaking it for a demon. She sighed. Being a Slayer in the modern, non-demonic world was boring. What was the point of being a part of this amazing power if you could never use them? She would never use them for purposes other than slaying however, she wasn't the type of person to use force to get what she wanted, unless she wasn't given another option. Jessie hopped off the swing and decided to head home, nothing was going to happen tonight, so why bother waiting around? She slowly walked home, kicking a small pebble on the sidewalk as she walked. She was glad her dad was a former Watcher, otherwise it would be hard to explain why she was sneaking in at midnight or later. Although he would give her shit for not slaying something for as long as she was out tonight. She checked her phone, it was one in the morning. Jessie grunted in frustration. Tomorrow was the first day back to school, at school number three. The first two she simply stopped attending at some point in the year due to boredom. That and she knew what she was going to be doing for the rest of her life, slay evil.

She reached her house. 712 Westbury Street. She quietly entered the house, but it was useless, her dad was waiting up for her, like he usually did. He was sitting in his big reading chair. She remembered sitting with him when she was a little girl looking through picture books of fairy tales. Her favourite was Snow White. Her dad would hate reading it night after night, so he started making up different stories for poor old Snow, including one where a demon ate her Red Riding Hood style and it was up to the Slayer Queen (what he would call the Slayer who made all potential Slayers into Slayers immediately) to defeat the demon and save Snow White. Jessie's favourite tale of his was the one where Snow White kicked the Evil Queen's ass and took the throne by force. But now, Jessie was too old to sit on her dad's lap listening to fairy tales, instead he would sit and read books silently. At the moment, he was reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown.

"How did it go?" he asked, not looking up from his book. Jessie looked down at her relatively spotless shoes. She was disappointed in not being able to find some demon activity, no matter how small.

"Nothing" she replied. He simply nodded, handling the news better than Jessie was.

"Go get some sleep, then. You start school tomorrow remember." He reminded her. She groaned. She hated school, it was a brick prison full of adults that didn't trust her and tried to push the concept of her having a 'problem' on her all the time. She had seen at least twenty guidance counselor and all told her she had some sort of problem. She was diagnosed with ADHD three times, ADD five, and Depression seven. She had no idea what supposed symptoms she showed of any of those, but she admitted that she was very stand off-ish. She isolated herself, outside of her best friend Rian. He grew up with her and she had no idea what life would be without him. The day she told him what she was, he promised that if she ever met a supernatural being, he would take very good care of her laptop. He joked like that with her often and she enjoyed his company, especially since many other people looked at her as a freak.

Falling asleep that night was difficult. Jessie wondered if she would still have classes from freshman year. She wondered if Rian would be in any of her classes, unlike last year when they only shared lunch. She also thought about what crackhead counselor would be hired this year.

* * *

Buffy stood on a hill over the town. She never imagined coming back here after giving her daughter up almost fifteen years ago. She had told everyone she was aborting the pregnancy, but at the clinic, she saw the posters of babies and children and couldn't bring herself to do it. She lied to her friends, saying she needed time to mourn her lost pregnancy, but she really needed time to have the baby and give it up to the father. She knew that he could protect her, being apart of the old Council and having a vast knowledge about demons. She learned later he took a job at Angel's law firm, Wolfram and Hart. It seemed it was the only place he could truly work, just as Wesley had years before. She still didn't trust Angel and his intentions, but destroying Los Angelus to stop evil did help restore some of her faith.

"Why here Buffy? There's low activity since the destruction of the Hellmouth here and it doesn't look like there's any Slayer energy." Willow asked, not knowing that in that town, there was a Slayer. Buffy's own daughter.

"I know of one here, and she's important. I don't want to risk loosing her too." Buffy answered. If her sweet little child was murdered from this demonic force plaguing the Slayers, she would never forgive herself.

"Then are you using your usual cover?" Willow asked. Buffy nodded. Tomorrow she would become the new guidance counselor in an attempt to find her daughter and save her life. She just hoped that this nightmare would end soon so she could reconnect with the child she had left so many years ago.


	2. Chapter 2- Introduction

Her parents had brought her to the hospital almost two weeks ago, and since then her condition only got worse. What was a scraped knee that became infected was now a fever, even after the infection was long gone. Her mother held her hand and she wondered if it were really an ice pack place on her hand.

"Her condition is only getting worse, we aren't sure how much time she has or what is causing the fever." The doctor said, barely loud enough for her to hear. It was obvious it was meant for only her parents to hear. They refused to leave her side as soon as the doctor said she wasn't contagious.

"Are there any more tests? Anything we can do for her?" her father asked, choking back tears.

"I'm afraid the tests we are running are taking too long. It's quite possible they may not show any results as well," the doctor explained. Her mother sobbed.

"She only eleven! She can't be dying," she screamed.

It was seconds later that another Slayer's life was ended. She was one of millions murdered.

Her desk was too neat. She was trying too hard and Jessie could tell, Miss Summers was hiding something. She kept straightening the lone pencil on her mostly empty desk as Jessie sat there, slumped in her uncomfortable chair. Miss Summers staring intensely at Jessie, almost in a possessive way, as if she had any right to knowing her secrets. Jessie wondered if they hired her specifically to deal with the problem child, herself. Maybe Miss Summers dealt with kids like her all the time. Jessie thought of herself scoffing, not actually performing the action as to avoid Miss Summers from asking what she was scoffing at. They both sat in silence, Miss Summers with a straight, rigid back, her hands clasped and resting on her desk a bit too tightly. Jessie was as relaxed as she could be without just lying on the floor and taking this time to sleep.

* * *

"So have you seen a counselor before?" Miss Summers asked awkwardly, slightly stuttering her words. Jessie snorted.

"I take it that you didn't even look at my file. Typical 'I'm your friend not a paid staff member' bullshit. Look, I am not going to spill my life's story to someone who met me five minutes ago. So if you'll excuse me, Miss Summers," Jessie exaggerated the s sound of Miss to mock her. "I'll be going to skip my next class."

"Wait!" Miss Summers jumped from her desk and blocked Jessie's way. Jessie was annoyed. She knew nothing would change. She leaned to one side and crossed her arms.

"I'll admit, I didn't look at your file. It doesn't matter. I'm not here for a bunch of papers to tell me what other people think of you. I'm here to talk to you and be there for you, whatever your problem is. Believe me, I have seen things that would make life seem like a fairy tale." Jessie thought of her dad, sitting in his chair with her reading her stories. There was something oddly familiar about Miss Summers. Jessie couldn't name it, but she wasn't going to let it bother her.

"I understand, these things take time. You'll never be able to open up until you trust me. That's okay, I get that, more so than anyone could. And I want to work with you, not fix you. You are not broken," she looked at Jessie with tears in her eyes. Jessie was surprised, she felt moved, but Miss Summers wasn't talking about her, she was talking about herself. Perhaps she would be different, unlike the others who thought Jessie was a broken kid from a broken family that needed to adjust to their standards. Jessie turned to sit back down. She could hear Miss Summers sniffle, it was quiet, like she wanted to hide it. Jessie understood that. Miss Summers sat down at her desk, resuming her previous position with more relaxation.

"Okay, well where do I start, Miss Summers?" Jessie asked, more sarcastically than she meant to. She had a problem with not sounding serious.

"Start with calling me Buffy." She replied. Jessie stiffed a laugh. Buffy slightly glared at her but then started laughing herself. Both of them laughed for a minute even though it wasn't quite as funny as they were making it out to be.

"I really don't know what to talk about, I never really talk to counselors. They look at my records and label me a problem child." Jessie admitted.

"Well how about I start. You know my name is Buffy Summers. Let's see, I have a sister named Dawn. I grew up in Los Angeles for most of my life before I moved to Sunnydale after I..." she stopped and stared at Jessie with her mouth open ready to continue her story. Jessie stared back at her, more intrigued rather than judgmental.

"You know, that's a story for another time. Anyway I've been travelling all over the place since... a... um... accident... happened to Sunnydale." she skipped around. Once again playing with the pencil on her desk.

"What happened to Sunnydale?" Jessie asked. She had heard of Sunnydale, California from her dad. There was a Hellmouth there that the original slayer destroyed, causing all the potentials to become slayers and ending the reign of evil and essentially eradicating evil. Jessie wondered if Buffy was speaking of the same Sunnydale. It would be amazing if she was.

"Oh, well... um... it... kinda... blew up..." she tried to pass it off as nothing. Jessie was excited, it was the same Sunnydale. Maybe Buffy would understand slayers better than Jessie originally thought.

"I actually think we're out of time, and if we want to prove everyone that they are wrong about you, you should probably go to class." Buffy said suddenly, obviously hiding something. Jessie wasn't going to push, mainly because she liked the way Buffy was encouraging her to be the bigger person. Then Jessie realized that she knew pretty much nothing in any of the courses. The rest of the day would be a pain.

* * *

Buffy watched Jessie leave her office. She felt like crying. She couldn't believe this young woman was the little baby she hid from everyone. Now she was grown up, and a slayer. Buffy had prepared herself for this moment, told herself that she didn't know her, that it would be easy to protect her, but it was so much harder than she had ever imagined it would be. She remembered what being fifteen was like for her. She had just become the slayer. Her parents were constantly arguing. She went from being the top of the food chain to the loser who burned down the gym. She couldn't imagine that feeling all her life. She also couldn't imagine going through all of the change without a mother there. Yes Jessie had her father, but it wasn't the same. Buffy had both parents there for most of her adolescent life. She wondered if Jessie had any friends, or more so hoped she had friends. Going through this alone was hard on all the girls she had met already, she didn't want that for her child.

"Hey there Buffster, how about an office picnic? Better than exposing you to the real world." Xander knocked lightly on her door, entering with Willow and Dawn. Buffy smiled slightly, she was still a bit distraught from seeing Jessie and realized that lunch was a good idea, she spent all morning talking with Jessie, who seemed to warm up a bit. She missed Giles. He had passed away years ago and she missed his wisdom, or lack of it sometimes.

"Yeah, come on in guys, I don't think anyone else will come see me. You can stay as long as you want." Buffy invited them in. Having them here seemed to calm her after the excitement of seeing her daughter for the first time since she was born.

"So, did you find her?" Dawn asked. Buffy freaked out, how did Dawn know?

"No, find who?" Buffy said defensively. They all looked at her weird.

"The slayer here, Buff. The one you insisted was here," Willow reminded her. Buffy calmed down. Her dark little secret was safe, for now.

"Oh, yeah, I found her. She's safe, for now." Buffy said, worried about whether or not her daughter would be the next victim.


End file.
